


alea iacta es

by Creamsicle_Corvid



Series: winged roses [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Demons, Gen, Implied Body Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:02:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22117582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Creamsicle_Corvid/pseuds/Creamsicle_Corvid
Summary: Karkat summons a demon.Again.(Takes place after chapter 1 of rosa sericea. This won't make sense if you haven't read it.)
Relationships: Rose Lalonde & Karkat Vantas
Series: winged roses [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1583902
Kudos: 6





	alea iacta es

You place the third candle down with a huff. It goes right inside the ring of shiny black wax from last time that you didn’t bother to clean up. The sacrifice, a rose, is tossed carelessly onto the circle, though it somehow lands directly in the middle anyway.

“Creature of night blah blah blah get your ass over here, demon, you fucked up big time,” you snarl. It’s not the most elegant of chants, but you’re too angry to care, and if it works then guess what, it doesn’t matter anyway!

The demon appears quickly with only the bare minimum of dramatics (the candles go out in wisps of black smoke). Its raisin-colored eyes have that sly tilt to them that make you think it’s smirking. Oh great. It knows what it’s done, and it’s feeling insufferable about it too, apparently!

You glare at it. You glare so hard that you’d say that you were glaring daggers, but that would be incorrect, because you’re actually glaring swords. No, not swords either. You’re glaring fucing  _ maces _ .

The demon places all four hands in its lap innocently. “Whatever did I do?” it asks.

“You know what you did.”

It stops ‘smirking,’ and evolves to being merely annoyed. “I do not, in fact, know what I supposedly did.”

“You,” you say, pointing at it with so much raw accusation that your finger shakes. “Broke our deal.”

For a moment, it actually looks worried, but that expression goes away as quickly as it appeared. “I don’t see how my actions could have been interpreted as deal-breaking.”

“Did you miss that little clause that specifically said ‘I’m in charge of how you carry out these orders’? Because I didn’t. Actually, I have a copy of our deal right here!” You pick up an unassuming black folder off of the ground and flip past the pages of demon-summoning  _ dos _ and  _ don’ts _ that you’ve copied from your eldritch handbook. Out comes a piece of printer paper covered in your big chicken-scratch handwriting. It’s written in pen instead of your normal pencil both so that it can’t be changed and because pen looks cooler. “Here it is! And oh look, here’s where it says, uh… ‘protect Kanaya Maryam from those who would harm or assault her’, right there, ‘the ways in which you do this will be decided by me’. It looks pretty fucking clear to me that you ignored that.”

It shakes its head solemnly. “I didn’t. It appeared to me that my charge was in danger, and as you had not yet decided the ways in which I was to protect her, I assumed that I could do as I wished. A sort of dictatorship, in the Roman sense.”

You cross your arms defiantly. “Yeah, well, the abuse of the Roman dictator position is probably one of the reasons that empire fell.”

“Would you rather I had stayed out of the conflict?”

It stares at you like a cat stares at a cornered mouse, satisfied and with a light, mocking grin. 

You groan. “I can’t argue with you and I hate it.”

It begins to say something, but you interrupt it. “However, I can tell you all the ways that was a fucking imbecilic decision.”

You hold up one figner. “One: Your solution is temporary. Those asshats probably think Kanaya went to get some coffee on her way home or something. Next week, or tomorrow or whenever they decide is a good time, they’re going to do the exact same thing they tried to do today, and unless you do something more permanent about it- like, say, USING YOUR DEMON POWERS- they’re going to make like cockroaches and refuse to just fucking die already.”

You put up a second finger.

“Two: Kanaya now thinks that you are an actual person. I talked to her earlier today, and she brought up the ‘mysterious person from yesterday’ five times. Obviously, you are not an actual person, so this won’t do.”

“Three:” You look at it disdainfully, putting your hand down. “Do you actually know how to act human?”

The demon scoffs. “Of course I can act human,” it says. “Watch this.”

It closes its eyes. The arms on its back sink into its body in a way that defies both physics and your comfort. Its tentacle-dress congeals into a real skirt, which changes from a smooth and dry tentacle-texture to a more fabriclike one. Finally, the darkness surrounding it slides off like water, revealing a woman in an elaborate purple-and-magenta dress. Its eyes (it only has two now) slowly open.

It smiles condescendingly, and the surprised look you had briefly donned drops right off of your face.

“Okay, first things first: the jaw needs to move with the mouth, not independently of it. The eyes are really pretty, but humans can’t have irises that purple even with contacts and sclera shouldn’t be gray.”

It frowns annoyedly. The grays of its eyes turn blindingly white. “Is this correct?”

You recoil. That’s so bright that it actually hurts. “Hell no. They are white, but they’re more of a… dark white, and they’ve got these little blood vessels in them.”

Its eyes change into being mildly realistic. “Am I doing it right now?”

You tilt your hand from side to side- a ‘meh’ gesture. “Close enough. You’ve still got an unnatural eye color though, and you’re forgetting to move your mouth when you talk.” You squint at it. “Also, I think you might be missing nostrils? Anyway, the point is that you clearly are not very good at being a human.”

“If I’m  _ so _ terrible at it,” it says, “why don’t you tell me how to improve?”

“No human is that pale. It looks like someone stuck a juice straw in your ear and sucked out all the color.”

“Hair isn’t one big thing, it’s a bunch of small things. Smaller than that. Still smaller than that. Fuck it, just look at my hair.”

“Did you forget lips?”

“Your fingers shouldn’t all be the same length. The middle finger is the longest- okay, I’ll have you know that was incredibly rude and I’m only letting it slide because I’m fairly sure you don’t know what it means.”

“What era is that dress from, the 16th century?”

“I’m telling you, you need to change those irises.”

“When we walk, our feet don’t just slide along the floor. We’d never get anywhere. Look.”

“Blink your eyes at the same time. No, not like that! Like this. God, that’s creepy.”

“Your tongue shouldn’t have skin.”

“Ew, ew, fuck, gross, fucking gross!”

“Teeth are flat, not pointy. Not that flat. Turn it back, turn it back! Now you’re just fucking with me. No, see: this tooth is pointy, but the rest are flat.”

“Your proportions are unrealistic. Seriously, you look like a Barbie doll.”

“Hey, do you have a fake name?”

S- it pauses. “What does that have to do with disguising myself as human?”

“Humans love names. Fuck, we name microscopic bacteria that live in the depths of volcanoes just for the hell of it.” Or at least, you think scientists do that. You wouldn’t know. You study history, not biology, and either way your true passion is screenwriting. You don’t say any of that to the demon, though. 

“‘What’s your name’ is probably the first question you’re going to get asked once you start venturing out into the great stupid world. If you say ‘oh yeah, my name is Dread Gl'bgolyb, Carbuncle of the Rift, nice to meet you’ then guess what? Best case, you’re a weirdo with no friends, worst case the government tracks you down and locks you in a secret alien containment facility.”

It thinks on this. “Well, horrorterrors do not tend to have names. That is a thing about our language that sets it apart from your human tongues. There is something about us, be it a feature of our species or a quirk of our speech, that allows us to always know who or what we are talking about.” The center of its palm turns dark, and a strange long appendage forms out of it. The shadow bleeds back into its hand, and you realize with a start that its hand now holds a rose; the exact rose, in fact, that you sacrificed to it. They don’t just disappear after all. (You briefly remember the glass of wine you sacrificed the first time you summoned it, and wonder if demons can get drunk.)

“However, if I have to choose one…” it says, cutting off your train of thought. It twirls the flower between its fingers. A wisplike, dainty smile crosses its face. “You can call me Rose.”

Rose. It’s a nice name, you guess. Not as weird as the names you and most of your friends have, and not exactly what you would choose, but then again you aren’t a mysterious, ancient, somewhat feminine demon.

“It is a nice name, isn’t it?” It begins removing its disguise- first its mouth disappears, then its hair gels together into a weird black blob, then you stop watching because it grosses you out. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, and even if you won’t, I have to go. I must make sure  _ she _ is alright.”

“Who’s she?” you ask dumbly, like an idiot.

The dem- Rose, you should probably get used to calling it that- seems to realize that it’s said something it didn’t mean to say. “ _ She _ isn’t important to you.”

“Oh.” You’re a little disappointed about not being able to solve that mystery, but you probably shouldn’t be meddling in the personal lives of demons anyway. “Well, consider yourself free to go, I suppose.”

Its human form is gone now, fully changed back into its demon one. “Farewell, summoner.”

“Wait!” you say before it can leave, and before you can stop yourself. “My name is Karkat.”

Its lower eyelids raise in a bad approximation of a grinning expression. “In that case, farewell, Karkat.”

It disappears, and somewhere in the back of your mind you register what you’ve just done.

“Bye, Rose,” you say softly after her, your voice ringing in the dark.

**Author's Note:**

> this is... probably worse than the other things in this series. oh well. Constructive criticism is still appreciated.  
> I'm taking next week off to do plot work, so don't expect an update.


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